Book Review: Edge of Infinity by Jonathan Strahan

Edge of Infinity by Jonathan Strahan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher: Solaris

I never feel that I read enough in the way of short stories, so I try to get them in through anthologies (I seem to love acquiring solely science fiction anthologies). I bought this one a while ago and am glad to have finally got around to reading it. There are some gems here and as usual, some new to me authors that I now want to seek out longer works by.



The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi by Pat Conroy
Excellent story & my measure of those is that I get to the end & want to know more. I hoped the rest would live up to such a wonderful beginning & then thought I was glad this one wasn't put at the end. Humans going through some serious changes to live and work out in far space. Fascinating and kind of scary. Definitely an author whose work I'll seek out.

Drive by James Corey
As a fan of The Expanse series, I'd already read this short and can say, it's very good. It reminded me that I need to get back to reading that series.

Safety Tests by Kristine Kathryn Rausch
Even in space the licensing of vehicle operators is dicey. This definitely made me want to get back to her Retrieval Artist series.

Vainglory by Alastair Reynolds
I really enjoyed this short about an artist whose medium is asteroids and the guy who basically uses her art as a conduit to mass destruction all for his, well the title says it all. I have lots of Reynolds' books in my deep TBR pile & I've put reading them off because getting drawn into yet another series is a bit daunting a thought (I've so many I'm in the midst of already!). But, I'm thinking I'm going to just have to because this made me hope this was part of those worlds and I want to know more.

Water Rights by An Owomoyela
Tense times after the ascender from Earth that transports water to space is disrupted by what may not have been an accident. Jordan, owner of the hydro rig Owole Hydroponics has her dreams of roses in space evaporate but only temporarily. A good story about the importance of water and peopel helping one another out & also making the dream of one, the rallying point for all. This definitely made me want to read more by Owomoyela.

Overall, this was a pretty good collection. I've mentioned my favorites here but that's not to say the other stories weren't good as well. With anthologies, it's always about personal taste so I'd recommend this one. I found enough that makes me want to seek out the "new to me" authors' other work and that's one of the things I always look for.


Summary:  "One giant leap for mankind". Those were Neil Armstrong's immortal words when he became the first human being to step onto another world. All at once, the horizon expanded; the human race was no longer Earthbound.

Our destiny would now be to reach out to eternity. Brought to you by the creators of Engineering InfinityEdge of Infinity is an exhilarating new SF anthology that looks at the next giant leap for humankind: the leap from our home world out into the Solar System. From the eerie transformations in Pat Cadigan's The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi to the frontier spirit of Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey's The Road to NPS, and from the grandiose vision of Alastair Reynolds' Vainglory to the workaday familiarity of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Safety Tests, the thirteen stories in this anthology span the whole of the human condition in their race to colonise Earth's nearest neighbours.


CONTENT
"The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" by Pat Cadigan
"The Deeps of the Sky" by Elizabeth Bear
"Drive" by James S. A. Corey
"The Road to NPS" by Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey
"Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh" by John Barnes
"Macy Minnot’s Last Christmas on Dione, Ring Racing, Fiddler’s Green, the Potter’s Garden" by Paul McAuley
"Safety Tests" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"Bricks, Sticks, Straw" by Gwyneth Jones
"Tyche and the Ants" by Hannu Rajaniemi
"Obelisk" by Stephen Baxter
"Vainglory" by Alastair Reynolds
"Water Rights" by An Owomoyela
"The Peak of Eternal Light" by Bruce Sterling




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